Wisdom of the Crowd

Piven’s OK in his latest starring role while Jones brings some ‘tude as Cavanaugh.

Wisdom of the Crowd gets a pass for now. The first episode addresses a number of interesting issues, although never going too deeply into them. ... Piven and Jones offer a strong presence for this type of show, and Natalia Tena works nicely as Sara Morton, Tanner’s head of the project, who gives him some balance and as something of a love interest.

Piven and Jones are wasted in formulaic predictability. By the end of the first episode, you’ll realize that the show will focus on a crime of the week, essentially doing a bargain basement take on “Person of Interest.”

Mr. Piven has always been able to make insufferable characters sufferable--maybe even likable--and Mr. Jones’s Cavanaugh is a down-to-earth antidote to his new colleague’s entrepreneurial loftiness. The rest of the Sophe crew is rather cookie-cutter. ... Are all brilliant! naturally. Also, predictable.

A thoroughly ridiculous tech-tinged procedural. ... Nothing that happens in the pilot seems legal, ethical or logical. [29 Sep, 2017, p.55]

The premise feels a trifle half-baked logistically.

Beyond the curiously Big-Brother-friendly themes, Wisdom of the Crowd is just a rehash of drama tropes.

Despite the ridiculous premise, the hollow performances, the shallow sketches that substitute for characters, and the incredibly thoughtless approach to the emotional lives of those characters, there are still moments when you might actually want to see what happens next. At times, it’s because an actor crackles with energy, and at others, it’s because it just doesn’t seem possible that things could get even dumber.

Actual wisdom in this show is in short supply.

[Jeremy Piven] skillfully employs the art of abrasion that he mastered on HBO’s “Entourage.” But he’s less persuasive as a haunted, grieving father. And the supporting players--his ex-wife (Monica Potter), his project manager and lover (Natalia Tena) and a pair of quirky computer whizzes--are underdeveloped in the pilot. But these typical growing pains are nothing next to the creepiness of the premise. Despite the flashes of self-awareness, the hero of Wisdom is mob justice.

A watered-down “Person of Interest” crossed with Fox’s failed “APB,” this time-waster stars Jeremy Piven as a Silicon Valley mogul touched by tragedy when his daughter is murdered, leading him to quit his company and create a crowd-sourced, crime-solving app. ... And to think CBS’s Sunday night was once home to a prestige drama like “The Good Wife” and now it’s a parking spot for this disappointment.

Lousy idea, lousy show.

From pacing to plotting to smirky hipster pseudowisdom ("Privacy? We gave that up a long time ago so we could watch cat videos on our cellphone"). Wisdom of the Crowd is a stylistic clone of Person of Interest and Bull. In terms of IQ points, it's the lowest yet.

This new Jeremy Piven series is proving to be one of the more naive and ludicrous shows of the fall season.

I don't remember the last time I watched a show with so much distaste for people who disagree with it, though I suspect there are people who feel this way about more clearly liberal shows. To them, I apologize. I'd argue that Wisdom of the Crowd isn't ideologically left or right, but rather just building a bad premise badly or, rather, treating a nightmare like a dream.